Description This is a portrait of a very blond little girl named Madeline. She is completely unimpressed with Yellowstone National Park. Old Faithful is erupting in the background while an airplane contrail cuts across the sky. That reminded me of a Steve Martin arrow-through-the-head. Her fine hair is blowing all over the place and she is wearing a white t-shirt and one of those plastic gold medals you give kids. The bright sunlight is casting rather harsh shadows on her tired little face.

Kelly Eddington, Monroe City, MOMember Since February 2012Artist Statement Ever since I was a child messing around with a terrible paint set from K-mart, I have been obsessed with controlling pigment suspended in water. Now I paint with beautiful, hand-made watercolors along with brushes ranging from high-end to dirt cheap, but the obsession remains. I create large, highly realistic portraits, still lifes, and landscapes using the most unpredictable, unstable, and unforgiving medium known to man. My paintings are time-consuming and sometimes backbreaking. I have always tried to take watercolor as far as it can go, and as a result my work resembles oil paintings in terms of color richness and detail. Hearing my viewers say, “THAT’S a watercolor?” always makes me smile.

I was an art teacher in two Illinois public high schools for seventeen years. Anyone who has ever been an art teacher with a limited budget knows that it is a profession that stretches a person's creativity to the absolute limit. Effective art teachers must know their subject inside and out and strive to develop their own artistic visions as they teach others. I feel that teaching has made me a better artist. I used to devote each year's "off-season" to creating my meticulous watercolors, and now I’m happy to produce them year round and offer them as prints on Imagekind!